Falling And Other Stories
by bokhi
Summary: Short Story Collection. 1. Falling: Masako is always falling.


Standard Disclaimers apply.

Warnings: Spoilers. If you do not know who "Dr. Davis" is, and is currently following only the anime series, you may not want to read this. Particularly if you don't know about the GH manga and novels.

To everyone else: I do not have access to either the novels or the manga, but I did read some spoilers that got me thinking. This is mostly me musing in fic format, so take it with a grain of salt (or a bucket, even).

This fic is Masako-centric. If you absolutely loathe Masako with every fibre of your being, you may not want to read this.

P.S. There are OCs in this. They are not particularly pertinent, but I figured I should just mention them in case you have a passionate loathing for any and all OCs.

And because I've just realized how vague and confusing this is, the first scene takes place during the third case (the one with PsychicGirl!Kasai and Psycho!Teacher).

Falling

Masako is always falling.

…

A sudden chill, the whisper of a child's laugh – then a bone-white hand beckoning, beckoning softly (come here sweet child come to me) in the corner of her eye –

She turned on instinct. That was her second mistake. The first was coming here alone. There was nothing against the wall; the dark corners were full of nothing but dust and imagined fears. Below her the stairs were grey and barren.

The danger came from behind. There was no warning.

She felt the cold, first. It was like being embraced by winter; the chill shot through her with all the mercy of steel pins through butterfly bodies (strange how she thought of frogs, small and sleepy under the spell of chloroform as they were pinned, one by one, against a medical tray, splayed open with its little heart beating _thumpthumpthump_ until that too died into silence -) and her strength failed her as it _pushed _--

She screamed.

The stairs rushed up at her as she fell.

…

Masako landed hard against the pavement. There was a split second of stunned silence, then pain; it trampled over her will and pride, and she was soon bawling into the sleeves of her yukata. Her knee was bleeding sluggishly, staining the pavement like crushed berries.

"Masako!" Masako could hear her mother's footsteps thumping hard against the pavement as she ran. Her handkerchief was soft as she wiped Masako's tears away. "There now," she said, "there's my brave girl." She held out her hand, and, sniffling still, Masako gripped it tightly. "Let's go inside, Masako-chan. I want to wash off that knee."

When Masako thinks back to that golden afternoon, she remembers the sting of antiseptic and vanilla ice cream. She'd worn a Hello Kitty Band-Aid for the week that followed.

She'd refused to speak with Kenji for three days.

"I hate boys," she'd said, and her mother had only laughed and finished combing her hair.

"Accidents happen, Masako-chan."

"He did it on purpose." She glared at the small box of chocolates sitting on her dresser. Her mother tugged her hair, gently, then reached over and tapped the box against the table.

"He's sorry, Masako-chan. See? He even brought chocolates."

"His mom brought chocolates." Masako stuck her lower lip out and tried not to stare at the box. Meltykiss. Masako loved Meltykiss. Her mother laughed.

"That's because you shut the door on Kenji-kun, dear." Masako sniffed delicately and turned her head away.

"That's because he's mean and rude. Stupid boys." She paused, then announced, "I'm never going to get married. Ever."

"Masako-chan!" Her mother said it with a surprised sort of laugh. "Why ever do you say that?"

Masako gave her mother a _look_. Her mother hid a smile. "Because," she said, in a long suffering tone, "if I get married, it means I have to live with a boy. Forever. And boys are stupid and mean. I'd rather live with you and father." Her mother smoothed Masako's hair back fondly.

"You'll change your mind once you grow up."

"No, I won't." Masako's mother smiled.

"You will once you fall in love." Masako took a moment to consider this.

"No, I won't. Not with a boy. They're all rude and stupid."

"Boys don't stay boys forever, Masako-chan. One day they'll be young men, and you'll be a young woman. You could fall in love with one of them, then." Masako opened her mouth to reply, and her mother said, quickly, "Your father is a man too, Masako. Surely you don't think he's rude and stupid…?" Masako shut her mouth.

Her mother hummed contentedly as she finished with Masako's hair. She tied it up with bright red ribbons. "There," she said. "As pretty as a picture."

Masako said, "What's it like?" Her mother looked at her curiously.

"What's what like?"

"Falling in love."

…

The first time she laid eyes on Oliver Davis, he hadn't even looked her way. He couldn't: captured on film, he would forever repeat the same motions over and over, holding his twin's hand as a block of aluminium smashed into a padded wall.

Masako had only looked at the footage to please her father. Afterwards, she'd murmured a few polite comments and put it out of her mind. Certainly telekinesis (PK, her father corrected her indulgently) was a fascinating thing, but Masako thought it to be a rather cold kind of gift to have: the young Davis prodigy would never know what it was like, after all, to see anything but the material world his eyes showed him. Perhaps at most it was something like having an extra arm – a very long extra arm – that sometimes did as it was told, and other times didn't.

It certainly wouldn't make him any friends. Perhaps that's why he had a twin, she mused; it was to make up for being cursed a little. To save him from a friendless life. Masako slid the door open and stepped out into the garden. The moon hung in the sky, a white, lone mask lording over a city of yellow lights.

"Don't you think so, Chiho-chan?" Chiho stopped skipping beside her long enough to twine Masako's fingers around her own. Masako shuddered at the sudden chill. Around them, fireflies drifted lazily over the small Zen garden, glowing like will-o-wisps over the pond.

"I think I'm not very lonely anymore." Masako smiled, a soft girl-smile that was never (would never be) captured on camera.

"I'm glad," she said. They watched the lights bob over the water. The air smelled of summer heat and flowers. The night was full with the sound of cicadas and shared secrets under a tree.

Abruptly, Masako said, "I'm leaving for a trip to England tomorrow. It's not a long trip, but it'll still be a week." Chiho looked at her curiously. "There's a conference there. On supernatural phenomenon and paranormal investigation techniques. Father thought it would be interesting, and he knows people there who want to meet me. Father – " Masako stammered to a stop. She didn't want to tell Chiho about the four interviews and séances scheduled for the first five days, so she settled for tilting her head back and staring at the moon.

Chiho gave Masako's hand a soft squeeze. "Are we friends, Masako-chan?" Masako squeezed back.

"Of course." Chiho smiled. Something in the world shifted; Masako blinked to clear her vision as Chiho's smile blurred around the edges. There was a hollow feeling in the pit of her stomach. If Masako had been wiser, she would have called it premonition.

Very softly, Masako said, "Chiho-chan?"

The shoji door slid open with a soft _snick_ sound. Her father looked out into the garden.

"Masako?" His eyes slid over the stone walkway, over the summer grass and trimmed hedges. Chiho didn't turn to look at him, but Masako did. She tucked her chilled fingers into the sleeves of her yukata before replying.

"Yes?"

There was a short silence as he stepped into his zori. "Were you speaking with someone just now?" Chiho was humming softly under her breath.

Masako said, "No. Just myself." Her father clucked his tongue in a way that could either mean he was fondly exasperated or annoyed by her eccentricity.

"Come inside, Masako. It's dark out here."

"Yes, father."

As Masako stepped into the square of light that was the doorway, she thought she heard someone say, "Thank you." When she looked back, the garden was empty.

Indoors, the lights were warm and yellow. Masako cupped her fingers around her night-lamp.

Her fingers were still cold.

…

"What a cold child," she whispered. Masako heard her just fine, but said nothing.

"Not a single tear," someone else murmured, and Masako heard that too. It didn't matter.

Later, everyone came to tell her what a brave girl she was, how sorry they were. Masako stared at them with wide-eyed silence until they went away. Except Kenji. Kenji stood awkwardly in his funeral clothes and tried to comfort her by standing close to her and glaring at people he knew she didn't like. After awhile, he finally said, "I'm sorry," and he sounded so pitiful as he said it that Masako was compelled to ask,

"For what?" Kenji stared at her for a heartbeat too long before speaking.

"Your mother." Masako looked away and at the photo of her mother set in front of the shrine. By now the incense had burned down to their last legs.

"You don't have to be," she said, finally, and ignored the strange looks she was getting. "She's not dead." Her mother stood behind her and ran her cold fingers through her hair.

Kenji was looking at her strangely. "Masako-chan," he said, and there was something tragic about the way he said it. She looked at him and thought of a fish in a fisherman's net, mouth gaping as it drowned in air.

"Close your mouth, Kenji-kun," she said, finally. "It's rude."

…

Mai is one of the most unpolished girls Masako has ever met, and possesses no social graces whatsoever. Mai's voice is unrepentantly loud; she shouts where Masako would turn her head and murmur an agreement, and laughs where Masako would hide her smiling lips behind the sleeves of her kimono.

Mai reminds Masako of something unfinished, like a piece of music left undone with the melody singing on and on by itself. Mai is the child that runs across the street chasing a bright red ball. Mai is the child who hops onto a fence and walks down its length, arms held out for balance the entire way. Mai is Mai, and her face is an open book for everyone to read.

Masako wouldn't care, but for the fact that everyone tilted towards the girl when she walked into a room, like flowers to the sun.

Masako is quiet and polite and says all the right things; she is pretty, she is rich, and she is the girl everyone should aspire to be.

Nobody has ever called her an idiot. Nobody has ever twirled her into an impromptu waltz in the middle of the street, or told her to guard her feelings. There was no need for any of this, because Hara Masako isn't an idiot, is too well mannered to clog up the side-walk, and already knows all about the wolves at her door.

Masako stands alone in a room full of people and wonders what she did wrong.

…

Masako once asked her father how he knew he'd loved her mother. The words had tumbled out somewhere between her slicing up her steak and putting it in her mouth. Masako had stared down at her plate, and watched the steak sauce bleed over her white china plate.

He hadn't missed a beat. He'd chewed thoughtfully on his own steak before saying, "We got married." And then he'd ordered another bottle of wine, presumably to celebrate Masako's new TV star status.

It occurred to her then that perhaps her mother hadn't been talking about her father (_What does it feel like?_), after all.

…

Kenji hadn't spoken with her for a month. At thirteen, Masako was old enough to know that boys liked playing boy games with other boys, but also knew that childhood friends did not avoid each other for weeks and weeks on end. So Masako stood waiting by his locker, feeling stupid and silly, but knowing there was no other way because he pretended he wasn't home when she rang his doorbell, and his mother lied for him.

Masako fidgeted, feeling small and awkward as people glanced at her and turned away snickering. Someone said, "Hey Masako-_chan_, how're your imaginary friends today?" and Masako stood staring at the row of lockers right in front of her, as though she hadn't heard a thing. The group of girls burst into peals of laughter and she could hear snatches of their conversation – "Oh, she's got her nose in the air now, isn't she special?" "Isn't that Kenji-kun's locker?" "Oh yeah, she's stalking him – oops, I meant, haunting him" – and bit her tongue to keep from saying something…regrettable.

Kenji finally showed up a good fifteen minutes after the bell, with a loud group of friends. At the sight of her standing by his locker, he went very still; then he squared his shoulders in a way a soldier might before going into battle, and slowly walked her way. The entire group slowed when they saw her, whispering.

"Kenji-kun." Masako said, feeling small and awkward. He paused just a heartbeat too long before replying.

"Hara." Hara. Politely, as though he'd never pulled her hair out of their braids or pushed her down the slide or thrown snowballs at her until she'd burst into tears, and then it had all been, "I'm sorry Masako-chan, don't cry, don't cry – " _Don't cry_.

"I haven't seen you around lately, Kenji-kun," and that was a big fat lie, because she had seen him around, he'd just ignored her the whole time.

Kenji said, "I have to get into my locker, Hara." She moved to the side obligingly, and they were suddenly in their own little bubble of space, his friends hanging back as though afraid her of her strangeness – contagious, like flu or banality – and for a moment she could pretend it was just the two of them. Except she didn't, because she wasn't the type to pretend (_why don't you just say you don't see them, Masako-chan? Because I can_), anyways.

After a moment, Masako said, "I really need to talk to you, Kenji-kun," just the way she used to when they were younger, and when his fingers paused on the zipper of his book bag, she knew she had him. For now. Kenji slammed his locker shut. He didn't answer her directly, but he looked over his shoulder and addressed his groupies: "You guys go ahead. I'll catch up later." They waited in silence as the group drifted out, his more vocal friends saying "Okay, but don't say we didn't warn you!" and "Your funeral, Kenji!" over their shoulders.

Kenji fidgeted, looked around the hallway even though it was mostly empty. He slung his bag over his shoulder and shoved his fists into his pockets. Masako followed him out into the yard, then further into a crack between the main school building and the supply shed. The sun was positioned just so that it casts its glare right into her eyes, so Masako stared down at the ground as they walked. Behind the shed was shade.

"Well?" he said, once he's sure they were out of sight. Masako fidgeted with the hem of her shirt before blurting:

"Are you mad at me?" and she nearly kicked herself, because that wasn't it at all; she knew perfectly well that he wasn't _mad_ at her, he was –

Kenji stared at her for a moment, and she thought she could imagine what he was thinking (_idiotfreakwhycan'tyoustayawayyoumakemelooksobad_), and it makes her blush and stare at her toes. Finally, haltingly, he said, "No." He said it as though it had been drawn out of him by force, like she'd dropped a fishing wire into his mouth and pulled the words out inch by precious inch.

They were silent for another moment. Masako could hear somebody laughing, down in the field; a car honked once, twice, before lapsing into quiet. Masako started to say, "Kenji-kun," just as Kenji started, "Masako," and then they both stopped, staring at each other's familiar face as though it was a stranger's. Politely (so different from the boy he'd been, the one who'd pushed her off the swings and bought her chocolates later), Kenji nodded at her to go ahead.

"Why are you avoiding me, then?" Masako didn't know how else to say this, so she said it the same way she said everything else: awkwardly, unpolished and blunt. Graceless.

Kenji sighed through his nose. "Look, Masako." He paused to stare up at the sky, as though seeking divine inspiration. "We're not kids anymore. And…you're…" Crazy Masako. It wasn't fair. Kenji pursed his lips as he floundered for more polite words, more distance. "We're not kids anymore," he said again, and Masako curled her hands into fists. So what? Kenji was still talking, but Masako wasn't listening anymore.

"Coward." Kenji stopped abruptly and looked at her. "You're still rude and stupid." Somewhere in the back of her mind, she knew this wasn't it, wasn't what she was supposed to say, but she couldn't stop. Stupid Kenji. Stupid, stupid Kenji. His eyes were narrowed, and Masako knew that it didn't matter what she said now, he'd ignore everything she'd say out of sheer stubborn pride. There was only one thing to do, and that was…

"What are you so scared of? Ghosts? Being crazy?"

"Shut up. You don't know anything, you –"

"Oh, I know! You're scared you're really a loser. That's what it is. You're a loser, and you don't want to admit it. Your friends won't like you anymore, is that it, Kenji-kun?"

"Hara. Shut up."

"Coward. Loser. Idiot. Zit-face! I hope you're –"

"Shut. Up."

"— happy now, with friends who laugh at you when you're not there – "

"Shut up!" He shoved her. Masako stumbled back until her back hit the side of the shed, staring at him in surprise. His expression mirrored her own. Something in his eyes shifted, and he looked away.

"It's your fault," he said, "if you'd listened to me, this wouldn't – you should have – why don't you listen to me?" Masako stared at him. The wall was cold, from being in the shade all afternoon. She could feel it soaking through her uniform.

"It's your fault," he said again, but he wouldn't look at her anymore.

"I can't help being a freak," she said, finally, "but you can help being a jerk." He glared at her at that.

"You're a liar and an attention whore. You've been that way since –" your mother died, he would have said, but Masako didn't let him finish. She threw her book bag at him.

It hit him in the shoulder and he said, "Ow," in an arbitrary and disinterested sort of way, but Masako didn't feel any better. They glared at each other in silence.

"Kenji-kun?" Masako turned around so fast she almost lost her footing. Kenji had gone stiff and pale. A girl stepped around the corner, eyes widening in surprise at the sight. Her expression shifted, and Masako was instantly wary. A mercurial sort of girl, she thought. The girl glanced at the book bag, its insides spilled out onto the ground and at Kenji, who was looking markedly guilty.

"What are you doing here, Kenji-kun?" she said, as though Masako was a pole standing by the roadside. "Everyone's waiting." Kenji shrugged his shoulders.

"Nothing. I'm done." And then they were leaving, stepping away into the sunlight, and before Masako could stop herself:

"Wait!"

Kenji paused, but he didn't turn. The girl did. "Did you need something, Hara-san?" Masako stared hard at the back of Kenji's head, willing him to turn around. He didn't. Before Masako could say anything else, the girl continued, "If you don't have anything to say, Kenji-kun and I have some _friends_ who're waiting for us." The look she gave Masako was all female, foxy (months later, a news reporter who gets a little too nosy is treated with this particular look, and a nasty pair of claws: "Oh, Ibitsu-san, I'm sure your wife can tell you _all_ about _that_!") with a smug sort of victory as she looked down her nose. "Good day, Hara-san."

And just like that, they were gone.

The silence was broken when Miyako, hanging from the exposed beam of the rafter said, "You should have hit him harder." Masako glanced up. Miyako waved down at her, swaying in a breeze that wasn't there with the skipping rope tied snugly around her neck, as always.

"Why are you still here?" Masako asked, and Miyako shrugged.

"I don't know," she said, "but I'm getting really tired of hanging around."

Three weeks later, Masako left the school for good. When Masako ventured into that shadowed space one last time, there was no one there. Masako waved a goodbye anyways, just in case; then she was bustled off to a life of stardom (or so her father said; Masako didn't really see the celebrity power of being the occult flavour of the day), and only thought about Miyako when depressed fans wrote in to her on Hello Kitty letterhead.

Kenji never wrote to her, and Masako was too busy too care.

Much.

…

Naru is a difficult man. Masako sits still on her seat with perfect posture and does not fidget. "Hara-san," he is saying, "I cannot accept your offer. As you can see, the office is inundated with paper work at the moment and my assistant – " Lin glances up at this "- my other assistant –" Lin resumed his paperwork " – is tied down with schoolwork, and is thus unable to pick up the slack. Perhaps another time."

Naru is a difficult man, but he isn't impolite. Not to her. He shuffles the papers on his desk rather pointedly, though, and she knows that if she'd been anyone else (Mai), he would have already gone back to reading, perhaps pausing just long enough to give her a sideways look and a brief "Did you need anything else?" before resuming his quest for peace and quiet.

"That is unfortunate," she says, as though she is getting ready to leave (she makes no move to do so); "it is supposed to be a very good show. The tickets were given to me by a good friend of my father's, Takeda-san. Perhaps you know him?" Naru looked at her with a wary sort of patience. Naru was mostly difficult because he was very intelligent; Masako didn't mind, she preferred her men with brains.

"I'm certain the two of you would get along," she continued, "because Takeda-san is very much like you; he is very kind, very polite. He knows how to show his gratitude to those who have been good to him. That's a good quality, don't you think?"

If she hadn't been watching for it, she would have probably missed it. Naru's fingers tightened very slightly on the papers for a heartbeat, then slackened. He set the papers back down on his desk.

"On second thought, Hara-san," he said, "It would be terribly ill-mannered of me to leave you to go home alone." Lin had glanced up at this; Naru held his gaze. "Lin, I'm going to be out for a few hours. Handle things here, will you?" At Lin's nod, Naru stood and donned his coat. "Hara-san?" Smiling into the sleeve of her kimono, she allowed him to help her with her coat.

Masako really did prefer her men with brains.

…

The first time Masako sees a ghost, she is eight years old.

At first, Masako is confused by the double image of her mother standing over a woman crumpled in an odd sort of way at the foot of the stairs; she is wearing her mother's clothes. Her mother is standing at the foot of the stairs. Her mother's brand new kimono, with its blaze of red autumn leaves is a crumpled heap around the woman's prone body, the sleeves trailing over the floor like blood from a vein. Her mother is standing at the foot of the stairs. She is looking down at this woman who is wearing her clothes and face and hair; Masako tugs an errant strand of hair that is getting into her eyes and the image doesn't change.

"Mama," she says, and her mother finally looks up and away from the form lying on the ground and looks at her daughter. Masako knows that she should call 119, because that's what she was taught in school and Masako has always been a good student. But her mother is simply standing there, not saying anything, not moving, and now Masako isn't sure of what she should do now, either. All she knew was that the Obon festival was starting, and that her father was coming home in an hour so they could honour their dead.

"Mama," she says again, and her mother finally turns to face her.

"Masako-chan," she says, and she holds out her arms like doors. "Come here, Masako-chan." It's not a hard decision, and Masako doesn't think twice about stepping into her mother's arms.

…

The group project is on air pollution. Masako stares hard at the group of girls staring back at her with a kind of passive-aggressive intent. "Sorry Masako," says Asuko, "but our group's full." Masako knows this is a bold-faced lie, because the desks are arranged in groups of four, and their fourth seat is empty.

"Oh," she says, sweetly, pointing at the empty desk, "I suppose your fourth member is sick?" Asuko nods, relieved she wouldn't have to make up her own lie. It is short lived. "Then you won't mind if I sit there for today, would you? All the other seats are full." Before Asuko can protest, Masako sits down and opens her book bag. As soon as Chiisa (Asuko is busy going blue in the face) starts sputtering, Yamagawa-sensei walks by.

"Is something wrong?" Sensei was very good at being oblivious when it suited her. Before anyone else can answer, Masako says, firmly, "No, sensei. We're just having a group discussion." Sensei nods in approval, and walks back to the front of the class.

Masako smiles at them sweetly, and savours her victory for the day.

…

The second time Masako saw Oliver Davies (the first time she had ever seen him in person), she was struck by the expression in his eyes. They were lonely kind of eyes, the gaze hardened and intent softened by loss. There was nothing else about him to indicate sentimentality of any kind; he was cool and professional, his voice schooled into distance the way hers was to calm femininity.

There was a vague feeling of familiarity, something about the slope of his nose and his bearing, his set shoulders. After the first case, Masako had gone home with a sharp, stabbing sense of deja-vu that drifted away when she grasped at it; she sat in her room and thought hard, coming up with fistfuls of nothing. She hadn't seen him at a convention, she was sure of that; perhaps she'd seen him on the street somewhere, passing each other by without so much of a mutual glance…

No. She would have remembered someone as striking as he; that confident gait was a dead give away, and besides, she wouldn't be feeling like this if it had simply been a case of two strangers, passing each other by.

A piece of the puzzle came unexpectedly when she'd made a passing remark about "Shibuya Psychic Research" to her father. His reaction had been too telling to ignore; he was a reticent sort of man, but Masako wasn't an idiot, and besides, she knew how to pry information from unwilling minds, whether they be the living or the dead.

It didn't take much.

The third (second, the first didn't count) meeting solidified her suspicions. If she tilted her head and squinted a bit, she thought she could see him as he was when he'd been a little younger, a little happier; for some reason she thought of violence, something striking a wall with uncontrolled force.

His complete inability to mask his British English was the clincher.

After the second case at his service, Masako freed the tape from its dusty cardboard prison in the basement, and watched him hurl an aluminium block into a padded wall. He was holding another boy's hand, obviously his twin; his absence now glared at her accusingly, as though it had somehow been her fault, as though this secret was something she should have left in its grave.

His eyes were focused in the video, with none of the poetry she saw in them now. A flicker of guilt flitted over her psyche at the thought; Masako shut her eyes and heard the metal block thud into the wall again.

_Perhaps that's why he had a twin; it was to make up for being cursed a little. To save him from a friendless life._

Masako pressed her lips together as she watched the footage again.

_Are you lonely now too? _

…

Masako wakes up to an empty hospital room. By her bedside is a bouquet of flowers and a card. When she flips the thick, frilly paper contraption open, she is confronted by rows of neat, impersonal kanji. It says simply:

_Dear Hara-san:_

_We apologize for this unfortunate turn of events. Thank you for your help during the course of our investigation; it is our sincere hope that you make a full recovery in the near future._

_Sincerely,_

_The SPR team._

Masako calmly closes the card and sets it neatly in its place on the table. She settles back into her pillow and closes her eyes.

She stays in the hospital all of two days. A hairline fracture on her wrist and a slight concussion. By the end of the second day, her hospital room resembles an indoor garden party; she doesn't know who leaked what, when, and where, but get-well notes wall-papered her room and her security detail (hired just for the occasion) was having a hard enough time screening her visitors, none of which was her father. Or Naru.

She is relieved when the doctors tell her to go home. As she packs her things, she stumbles across the first note again. The flowers have long since wilted, having been shoved into the back of the counter to make room for its successors. Masako dumps them into the garbage, knowing it is far too late to save them, and briefly considers keeping the card that Lin – because she knows it was Lin who wrote it, the kanji being too clean and precise to be Naru's – had so thoughtfully (so professionally) sent her.

It ends up in the garbage beside its mate.

After she's done, she pauses in the middle of the room, even though it's clean and neat and there's no reason for her to sit around stalling; an extra five minutes won't change anything.

Naru will still not visit.

In the end, Masako doesn't keep any of the bouquets. She keeps some of the cards, though; her fans can be thoughtful and sweet, and she's human too, dammit, and she sometimes needs a little pick-me-up.

On her way out, something trips her; she stumbles, flings out a hand to catch the side of the hospital bed, but she misses by mere millimetres and on her way to the floor, she sees out of the corner of her eye a bundle of dead blossoms that she'd somehow missed.

Masako is falling, and waits for the ground to catch her.

…

"Falling in love?" Masako nodded, expression grave. Her mother pursed her lips thoughtfully. "Is it like falling?" Her mother looked at her in askance. "It's called 'falling' in love," she explained, and her mother smoothed back her hair with a little chuckle.

"You're really too clever, Masako-chan," she said, and Masako beamed at the praise. "But," her mother continued, "I think in the end, falling in love isn't like falling down something; it's falling up." Masako stared at her, slightly puzzled. How did one fall _up_?

Her mother smiled at the expression.

"Falling in love, Masako-chan, is a lot like flying."

…

Masako is always falling.

A/N: This was originally supposed to be a short, five/six page ficlet, which has since bloomed into a fourteen-page monstrosity. I blame Kenji. That was completely unexpected, random, and insistent. Oh well. I hope you enjoyed your long and possibly tedious read.

P.S. Did anyone else notice that Masako is always literally falling down? Lean against a wall in a condemned building – falls to the ground. Climb the stairs by herself in a cursed school? Falls to the ground. And she gets carted away by an ambulance each time, too. The girl's cursed, I'm telling you, cursed!


End file.
